Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why, specifically?
Because the pair of distinctions chosen makes sense in some cases and not in others. I provided two examples in my comment above.
I don't see any examples in your comment.
Encountering Thomas Sowell
181–190 of 272 posts
Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
I grew up in a mostly black county in Virginia, and at one point lived temporarily in the household of a family of socially prominent black Christians. The father was a police officer, the mother a public defender in a neighboring county. The father was not quick to anger, but the angriest I ever saw him was when a bunch of white anchors in NYC on MSNBC brought on Al Sharpton, and asked him questions about what "blac…
My general impression is that the portrait we get from the media about "black America" is actually only accurate for something like 10-30% of black Americans (i.e., progressive black Americans). For example, the "defund the police" movement was marketed by the media (question #1 might be "why is the media marketing anything?" but ignoring that for now...) as a movement that black Americans wanted, but subsequent poll…
> Personally, I don't understand how this sort of ideology is supposed to get us closer to a post-racial world.
It isn't. These organizations exist because they have money, not because they actually want to solve legitimate social issues.
Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try saying that you believe that two-parent households are better for a kid that single-parent households in the presence of anyone who considers themselves social justice oriented or left-wing.
Does left-wing include the majority of Biden's base? Woke twitter is a small minority.
The media is Woke twitter, or at least a large part of it.
And if you don't believe that the media doesn't have any influence on people, particularly Biden's base, try reading Chomsky's _Manufacturing Consent_, or even Walter Lippman, if you want to read someone who thinks this influence is a positive thing.
Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell
#184I don't get what make him popular around certain crowds in HN. He is very polemical (I mean he was arguing that Obama would lead the US to live under Sharia law), is not a particularly good scholar, nor very insightful. Certainly, nothing he wrote as articles gave me a desire to read some of his books. There are tons of smarter, more interesting people in the conservative sphere, especially around libertarian/conserv…
I would suggest that peoples public persona and their intellectual work can be very different. I do not like Sowell's public commentary at all. But his scholarly work is quite good.
Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes and no. He doesn't burn bridges, but left of center media elites pull up the drawbridges. On topics like this, they view college activists as authoritative, objective sources of truth on race. Those activists view Sowell, and TCW, as heretics.
Recall also progressive journalist Lee Fang, who endured a cancellation campaign from colleagues at The Intercept because he Tweeted an interview with a black man who expressed concern about black-on-black crime. Many progressive activists and the media also aren't especially keen on Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Razib Khan, or dozens of other outspoken people of color. There seems to be some strong compulsion in the…
Larry Elder's recent documentary "Uncle Tom" explores this same phenomenon from the Black conservative point of view.
Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell
#186I didn't know he had a book on late speaking children. I ordered that one because of this article. My 3rd child didn't say anything until 4. You couldn't get my first two kids to shut up starting around 2. It was frustrating and challenging. I fear that he's not gifted in any way, as the summary of the book suggests. He has had a load of speech problems that has slowed down his reading abilities dramatically.
I started to talk briefly, then stopped for about a year, which sort of counts as late-speaking. It's good to be concerned and to understand your child, but it doesn't sound like you should panic. People tell me I'm smart.
Also, right now I believe we are overly-obsessed with intelligence. Intelligence is a tool; what's important is how you use it. A middling intellect with a good attitude can achieve a lot more than a high intellect and a middling attitude.
Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
A dig at fathers in the first paragraph, and a diplomatically stated rejection of the nuclear family in the second. You need to be very generous to interpret this as anything other than an attack on the traditional family.
I don't think this is a very charitable take. To me this statement is about making sure mothers don't have to do all the child-rearing, and coming together as a community to raise children. In any event, I definitely don't buy "tradition" as the sole reason to keep doing something a certain way. I also don't think the tradition you're talking about is nearly as traditional as you think.
The reason I don't interpret it in that innocuous way is because the founders of Black Lives Matter are self-described "trained Marxists" (https://www.city-journal.org/marxist-revolutionaries-black-l...), are follows of the ideologies of various Marxist theorists like Lenin and Mao (https://time.com/5171270/black-lives-matter-patrisse-cullors...), and therefore know full well that a core tactic of socialist/communist theory is to disrupt the family unit as a way to eliminate private property, increase the collectivist/state-rearing of children (propagandizing), and diminish competing ideologies/culture that can emerge from family structure (https://thefederalist.com/2015/06/29/americans-buy-into-marx...).
Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try saying that you believe that two-parent households are better for a kid that single-parent households in the presence of anyone who considers themselves social justice oriented or left-wing.
I usually agree with leftist views and I feel like having both parents is good for the kid. Maybe only fringe leftists believe otherwise. Or maybe it's lacking context, for example the discussion might be about abusive partners, or single people who don't want to marry but want to adopt a kid.
> single people who don't want to marry but want to adopt a kid
ie, a single parent.
BTW, I'm kind of on the left as well, in some ways (eg, I think income inequality and poverty is a huge problem). I just can't stand the current leftist orthodoxy, which is belligerently anti-fact if they don't like where the facts lead (two-parent households being a great example).
I guess I'm a Laschian leftist, or Laschian conservative, depending on your view of Lasch.
Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell
#189Sowell has the great and challenging characteristic that he never quite gives you the answer that would let you justify your first reactions with, "See? He agrees with me!" His writing is too nuanced to provide an easy escape from thinking, even if people occasionally use cut-up quotes to do so.
I like Sowell and agree with him but many of his positions would get you rapidly cancelled by the woke if spoken while white. He got away with saying sometimes negative things about black Americans by being one himself.
Re: Encountering Thomas Sowell
#190Sowell is the man. Read his books.
I feel like everyone should read Back Redneck, White Liberal. Reading this was illuminating. I had never heard this take on the story of America and race before reading Sowell.
Black Rednecks & White Liberals I think.
"This explosive new book challenges many of the long-prevailing assumptions about blacks, about Jews, about Germans, about slavery, and about education. "
I thought Race And Culture: A World View maybe my favourite - explains a lot about the world.